When Melissa Abola Friebe left Taco Bell to join Pizza Hut U.S. as chief marketing officer two years ago, she knew it was a turnaround situation.
Friebe says that the brand is “amazing” with tons of “untapped potential” but “at the end of the day, we need to turn results around. What is it going to take to win?,” she asked herself upon joining. At Taco Bell, she often heard CEO Sean Tresvant talk about balancing the math and the magic. She has applied this strategy to Pizza Hut – an iconic brand with its own loyal fans.
“The idea is to win with the magic of this brand, which all happens underneath the red roof,” says Abola Friebe.
Under her leadership, the brand launched a campaign featuring Tom Brady called “Pizza Before the Hut” in which the legendary quarterback takes a second career as a pizza delivery driver so he can keep continue saying “Hut!” call off the field. The QSR ran a campaign featuring the Backstreet Boys to promote heart-shaped pizzas for a Valentine’s Day promotion, as well as an affort with Anderson .Paak explaining how to throw a pizza party. The company has also opened Pizza Hut Classic locations – inspired by their eighties and nineties restaurants.
“It is called Pizza Hut,” says Abola Friebe. “The vision is to make sure whether you’re literally under the red roof or under your own red roof, that you have that magical Pizza Hut experience.”
The math is based on fundamentals that consumers are seeking, says Friebe – great value, east and convenience. “Consumers obviously have tons of choices,” she says. “The vision is getting both of those getting the math right so we can unlock that real magic of the brand.”
Brand Innovators caught up with Abola Friebe to discuss the red roof, how the brand is showing up in culture and how the brand is offering value. This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
Can you talk about the symbol of the Red Roof in your marketing?
It was really the mission symbol. We want to prove that Pizza Hut can instigate joy anytime people get together. Joy doesn’t just happen. You need somebody to instigate it. You can see it in our food and our storytelling. It’s optimistic, it’s fun.
For example, you can see it in our campaign “Pizza Before the Hut.” We are having fun with the Hut in culture and obviously pizza and football. It was inspired by the idea of instigating joy by a call-to-action of who’s going to say “Pizza Before the Hut” the next time they’re in the huddle. That ended up inspiring an idea of a retired quarterback joining Pizza Hut as a delivery driver because they miss saying “hut.” That’s how Tom Brady got involved. We were ultimately looking for a retired quarterback who missed saying “hut” and would have a little fun with Pizza Hut. We linked it to the red roof and these iconic assets that only Pizza Hut can do.
But to balance the math and the magic, creative always has to also do the job of retail. The campaign included our $10 big New Yorker. Winning in the pizza category, you have got to be there for consumers. We married the fun of “Pizza Before the Hut” with the value of a great offer.
You recently brought back the red roof with Pizza Hut Classic restaurants with designs inspired by your 1980 and 1990s dining rooms. What was the idea behind this?
There’s such strong emotional memories associated with Pizza Hut – the red roof, the dining experience, the checkered tablecloths, the salad bar. We basically have a variety of formats and one of them is a classic. We were talking about the untapped potential of the brand. You can have a digital experience, you can have a delivery experience, you can have an individual occasion modern restaurant, but we wanted to make sure that the classics were in the mix. Joy doesn’t just happen, you need to make it happen. There’s that call for simpler times and authentic and real things from our past that in the 1990s and that fits right in it. We’ve had these for a while, but they’re coming to the forefront because it’s what consumers are craving right now.
Pizza is a crowded category and consumers have tighter budgets these days. How do you communicate in this context?
We’re working to meet consumers where they are. They want a great tasting pizza. We always start first with this amazing craveable pizza. Then we offer value. The Big New Yorker was a really great example, an extra large pizza, foldable sizes, clearly $10. We actually relaunched our hand-tossed pizza. And we did that during March Madness. The dough, it’s a revamped crust. It’s lighter, airier, has a crispier edge. It has a lot more flavor with our signature garlic Parmesan seasoning. It is $10 with three toppings.
You’ll be continuing to see us offer amazing, craveable pizza with the unmistakable Pizza Hut taste married with a very clear price point. We are known for our iconic original pan pizza. We’re putting a new twist on it and launching our crispy Parmesan pan pizza. It’s our original pan with that added flavor dimension. It will be available nationally for $10. It’s about the food, but also access.
What is your approach to showing up in culture?
We show up in culture by having fun with our brand. There are tons of passionate fans for Pizza Hut. It’s a mindset around being under the hut. A big piece of it is having fun with hut and hut culture. “Pizza Before the Hut” is an example. Even those crusts are hut crusts – crusts that we can only do. We also recently had fun with the Backstreet Boys with a heart-shaped pizza. It’s really simple, we are creating easy joy.
Can you talk about what you learned at Taco Bell that you are applying here?
Taco Bell has an amazing culture of creativity and there’s a lot of rigor that goes into understanding what is going to drive consumer visits and the business. It’s very centered around the consumer. What are the occasions that people are going to Taco Bell? What are the occasions they’re going into Pizza Hut? I always think about what’s going on in people’s lives, what’s their relationship to food and what role does Taco Bell or Pizza Hut play? It’s all about putting the customer at the center and focusing on creativity.
What are the marketing challenges keeping you up at night?
I’m excited about the potential of the brand. The excitement around the classic restaurants and the nostalgia of the brand and bringing it forward in terms of an amazing digital experience. We just relaunched our loyalty program in March. We offer amazing value. At the center of that is customer data. Really using that customer data. That is something, honestly, that keeps me up at night and also is what I’m excited about because from a marketing perspective, it is that math and magic and using your brand in a smart way and making smart investments across channels. There’s a lot of growth in the food marketplace through the delivery aggregators, the Door Dashes and Uber Eats of the world. We also want to invite new customers who haven’t been here in a while. How do you take all of that and use it in a smart way to grow and turn around the business?
So it’s this balance of both the classic marketing challenge of balancing acquisition and maintaining loyalty?
It is an opportunity for us is continue to deliver that love of a restaurant brand in the context of the digital age and honestly in e-commerce business. How do you get both of those working at the same time? It has to feel like that red roof experience, while also reaching consumers using all the marketing tools that we have today. We want to talk to them where they are. We have the power to do that because a lot of consumers, most of the consumers, access us in a digital way.
